Metering and Exposing Ektar 100

[tgtaylor]

While I agree 100% with getting it right the first time in-camera but Ektar is a color negative and while you can color balance is PS you can also color balance in the enlarger with the filter pack.

Thomas

[Drew Wiley]

Not so, whatsoever, Tom. You can adjust overall balance for printing that way... but if you study how different the dye density geometry is, compared to say, Portra films, you will detect that underexposure of a SPECIFIC dye layer relative to the others will render correct hue differentiation relative to that IMPOSSIBLE unless it
is sufficiently exposed in the first place. In other words, if you underexpose only that specific area of the spectrum by not color temp balancing for it in the first place
(when conditions seriously warrant it), then you force parts of the scene down onto where the dye curves overlap and hence cannot be differentiated afterwards.
And I'm not referring to faking something by dithering or painting it in PS, but legitimately recovering it. This is just sensitometric fact, but I've got enough personal hard knocks experience to confirm the fact sufficiently. By correctly filtering for the lighting bias, you selectively raise the exposure of the SPECIFIC dye layer
involved. Of course, you can overexpose the whole damn thing and get an improved result, but not as good a result and doing it the right way. I see all kinds of
Ektar work with this or that idiosyncrasy, many of which are simply half-assed attempts to correct something in PS which can't really be done in an optimal way,
at least by folks shy of Hollywood levels of skill.

[BetterSense]

In other words, if you underexpose only that specific area of the spectrum by not color temp balancing for it in the first place
(when conditions seriously warrant it), then you force parts of the scene down onto where the dye curves overlap and hence cannot be differentiated afterwards.
And I'm not referring to faking something by dithering or painting it in PS, but legitimately recovering it....Of course, you can overexpose...

One man's overexposure is another man's proper exposure.

I would encourage the OP not to get so tied up in exposure details until he finds an actual problem. I've shot Ektar the way I do b&w film, except even sloppier, and the images are great. It's color negative film...you think you are exposing enough, give it another stop for good measure. Just my 2 cents.

[peteyj10]

... Oh, missed one point in your correction. In general, aim for the same midtone exposure as with an ASA 100 chrome film. But expect just about one stop more range into both the shadows and highlights as with typical chrome film, but distinctly less than in color neg films designed for portrait use. This is obviously a higher-contrast, higher saturation film. If you can routinely get good exposures on chromes, this product will present no problems to you other than accommodations to
serious color temp discrepancies in subject lighting. For those who just like to shoot from the hip, or wing it like conventional color neg films, there will be problems. If you do err on the side of caution, it should be toward MODERATE over-exposure, not underexposure.
When the shadow do fall, they fall hard.

Your two posts are exactly what I was looking for. While I have never shot chromes before, I've been reading up on them a lot lately (I plan on trying out some Velvia and Provia as well), so I know a few of the important things to consider, such as staying away from scenes with too much contrast. I've typically reserved high contrast scenes for black and white anyways, so that shouldn't be too big of a problem for me. I'll take the 81A and 81C advice. If nothing else, I just like the look warming filters add to a lot of shots.

[onnect17]

IMHO...
I agree with Drew regarding the correction of exposure using filters. I actually used to carry a color meter with 9 different filters but most of time I exposed in the middle of day so the circular polarizer was enough. That and development at home resolved all the color issues.
I also agree that many rely too much on photoshop to fix things. At the same time it is a most, at least to me, getting a set of curves in PS to fine tune each particular c41 emulsion using a xrite color chart.
I disagree in two points. I think it is very useful to be familiar with the latitude or range of the film, commonly seen as contrast. Some emulsions are really short in range, typically E6, but even within there are differences. For example, E100G and Astia have wider range than Velvia. You can easily find the specs of each film in the manufacturers website. Keep in mind also that the range is relative. The contrast is also increased with the use of polarizers, APO optics, etc.
The other is regarding overexposure. There are no details in the shadows worth burning the highlights.
Again, it is a matter of personal opinion.

[tgtaylor]

Not to disagree with you Drew as you probably know more about this than I do but I do recall printing an image of Horsetail Falls in which I masked off all but the sky portion and made a test strip that had about 10 or so different shades of blue to choose from (a straight print yielded an uninteresting dull grey sky which it was at the time because I was shooting into the same direction as the sun was setting which washed out the sky in that area) and then printed the image alternating between filter packs and masks. I believe that I posted the result somewhere on the forum.

Thomas

[BrianShaw]

One man's overexposure is another man's proper exposure.

I would encourage the OP not to get so tied up in exposure details until he finds an actual problem. I've shot Ektar the way I do b&w film, except even sloppier, and the images are great. It's color negative film...you think you are exposing enough, give it another stop for good measure. Just my 2 cents.

If more people would adopt this philosophy then the number of posts on internet forums of all types would plummet.

[Regular Rod]

RR and Drew..

The OPD specifically said that they had never used any kind of chrome film before, and so that's why they were inquiring as to any kind of specific things they should know in order to properly expose this film, from my understanding they have only used black-and-white and color negative films that have a large exposure latitude, so they were asking about how to properly meter for the shadows and the highlights etc. and since you don't really follow -n1 +n1 etc techniques with chrome films (to my knowledge) the procedure for proper exposure is different...

My reply was that I use it as if it was black and white film.

RR

[StoneNYC]

If more people would adopt this philosophy then the number of posts on internet forums of all types would plummet.

If they also stopped posting if they had no actual experience with the subject and were only giving hypothetical info, the numbers would exponentially plummet (I'm guilty of this sometimes I admit).

[Stephen Willard]

I did some testing in 2010 to benchmark Portra 160 VC against Ektar 100. What follows is a brief overview of my results.

How to Expose Ektar 100:
Personally, I believe you should expose for the shadows to insure sufficient detail in this region of the negative. If you use the slide film method you may severely underutilize the dynamic range of Ektar 100 film. Typical slide film at most had around a five stop dynamic range while Ektar 100 has a dynamic range of nine stops. However, I recommend you try both methods with two different exposures for a number of scenes and then compare the results.

ISO Setting of Ektar 100:
If you choose to expose for the shadows then you must determine your ISO setting using shadow light. If you choose to meter the highlights then you should use highlight light to determine your ISO setting. Because I used the former method of metering shadows, I determined EKtar 100 to have an ISO of 50. What most people do not realize is that shadow light is light by blue skies, and thus, it is very cool with an average color temperature of 6940K and an EV of 7-9 based on my own measurements using Glossen Color Pro 3F color meter. Because the red layer in cool light is by far the least dense layer, then it is critical that sufficient exposure is applied to insure proper rendering of reds. If you fail to do this then any reds in shadows will be rendered as muddied brown. To determine the ISO in shadows I metered a gray card and gave it a Zone I placement using a series of exposures starting at two stops overexposure and incrementing down by 1/3 stops to two stops underexposure. The exposure that gave me 0.10 density units above fb+f for the red layer is the ISO I used. In the case of both Ektar 100 and Portra 160 VC the ISO was one full stop of overexposure with ISO settings of 50 and 80 respectively to insure proper rendering of reds.

The Dynamic range of Ektar 100 and Portra 160 VC
I have actually built characteristic curves for both of these films using typical shadow light and found the Ektar 100 has a nine stop dynamic range while Portra 160 VC had a 12 stop dynamic range. It is my belief to fully exploit the full dynamic range of these films you really need to meter the shadows and let the highlights fall where they may. If you want I can post the CC graphs and data in a subsequent posting to this string.

The Color Contrast of both Ektar 100 and Portra 160 VC
I metered and photographed the Macbeth color chart using both films in shadow light using the ISO settings noted above. I then did a RGB density comparison of each color patch. The Ektar red density layer was about 15% greater than Portra. The Portra green layer was about 10% greater than Ektar. Both films produced the same blue density layer. If you want I can post the Macbeth color graphs and data in a subsequent posting to this string.

Hope this helps...